B'nai B'rith International kicked off February with a European Union Activism Seminar for college students, co-hosted with B'nai B'rith Europe, DOJAS and EUJS. The 20 participants came from a diverse background and geographic area, traveling from 19 different countries on four continents.The primary goals of the seminar were providing an overview about how the EU works, building skills of advocacy with EU institutions and discussing issues that matter to the Jewish community.

B'nai B'rith organized panels with civil servants, diplomats, elected members of the European Parliament, lobbyists and staffers to show the participants how policy is made in the EU, from both an inside and outside perspective.Jeremy Levin was a participant in the week-long seminar and left inspired to do more to advance Jewish causes in the EU.

"Last week was a phenomenal week, and I wanted to thank you for organizing the panels, meals, housing, and more for the EU Activism Seminar," Levin said. "I learned much more than I could have imagined, and have already begun to share my findings with friends and family, both within the EU and all over the world.

"Handfuls of people have contacted me with an interest in learning about our seminar, in addition to the great organizations that put on the event. I am gladly sharing what I gained while in Brussels."

Leeor Groen took advantage of the networking opportunities and is pursuing an internship to delve deeper into the world of Jewish advocacy.

"I am really appreciative of the unique opportunities we had and the things we got to see and do," Groen noted. "I took a particular interest in the work [Head of International Affairs in the Italian Ministry of Economic Development] Pasquale De Micco was doing, given that this is my field of study.

"I am very open to any opportunities and would really value the opportunity to come back."

English-language internet radio station TLV1, based in Tel Aviv, included a segment on France’s foreign ministry advising its citizens to avoid investing in parts of Israel. The concern is that this call for divestment could become a European trend. On the program “So Much To Say,” B’nai B’rith International Director of European Affairs Nuno Wahnon discussed this troubling topic.To hear his full interview, click the player below:

Until 2009, right-wing Portuguese politician Jose Ribeiro e Castro didn’t have much interest in the expulsion of his country’s Jewish community in the 16th century. That changed once Ribeiro e Castro opened a Facebook account.

Online, the 60-year-old lawmaker and journalist connected to several Sephardic Jews, descendants of a once robust Jewish community numbering in the hundreds of thousands, many of whom were forced into exile in 1536 during the Portuguese Inquisition. Eventually the encounters morphed into a commitment to rectify a historic injustice.

For Ribeiro e Castro, correcting the injustice meant spearheading a bill to naturalize the Jewish descendants of expelled Jews, a measure that unanimously passed the Portuguese parliament in April and went on the books last week, making Portugal the only country besides Israel with a Jewish law of return.

“The law is a commendable initiative,” said Nuno Wahnon Martins, the Lisbon-born director of European affairs for B’nai B’rith International. “It has economic considerations as well, which do not subtract from parliament’s worthy decision...more.

In his many years of service for France’s spy agency, Claude Moniquet has seen much evidence linking Hezbollah to terrorist-related activities in Europe and beyond.

The attacks, says Moniquet, a 20-year veteran of the DGSE intelligence service, go back as far as 1983, to the bombing of military barracks in Beirut that killed nearly 300 people, including 58 French soldiers.

Twitter must divulge details about French users who posted anti-Semitic messages, a French tribunal ruled.

Thursday's order by a Grand Instance Court judge in Paris came in response to a lawsuit by the Union of French Jewish Students that sought to limit the impunity with which Twitter users may disseminate anti-Semitic incitement.

“Social networks were created as essentially democratic tools that are also being used by people who oppose democratic principles,” Nuno Wahnon Martins, director of European Affairs at B'nai B'rith International, told JTA. “Like any democracy, the social networks also need to defend themselves, and the first step is to deny those who spread hate speech in anonymity as something to hide behind...more.